De Agricultura

But the question is not now about his force of cavalry, which it is necessary to collect around the rulers for the destruction of their enemies and the protection of their friends; but concerning the irrational, and immoderate, and unmanageable impetuosity of the soul, which it is desirable to check, lest it should turn all its people towards Egypt, the country of the body, and labour with all its might to render it devoted to pleasure and to the passions, rather than to the service of virtue and of God; since it follows inevitably that he who has acquired a body of cavalry for himself, must, as he said himself, proceed on the road which leads to Egypt.